The quick pace of technological advancement has resulted in a proliferation of electronic devices into various aspects of everyday existence. For example, a person may employ a mobile device to perform a variety of different activities such as communication (e.g., telephone calls, email, social media, etc.), financial transactions, business transactions, navigation-related tasks, entertainment, etc. These types of activities require the person to interact with the mobile device to provide instruction, direction, selection, etc. While typing on physical keys was originally the manner in which this interaction took place, human interface technology has evolved to the point that users may now, for example, type on virtual keys, swipe across the screen, talk to the device and even make gestures in midair that the device captures (e.g., via a visual sensor like a camera) and interprets as different commands. These new avenues of interaction may help to bridge the communication gap between man and machine and further the acceptance of new technologies.
The above mobile device scenario is well known example of a category of development in human machine interaction. The acceptance of new technologies may depend on, in a large part, successful utilization by people. Introducing new technologies may become problematic when end users cannot successfully interact with the technology. This becomes more difficult when the end users are not experts in technology and can only perform the interaction utilizing common prose (e.g., natural language). For example, if a user was to interact with a robot and the interaction proved to be extremely cumbersome, difficult, etc., it may be prohibitive for the user to employ the technology again. Users do not want to wrestle with attempting to verbalize something to a device such as a mobile device, computer (e.g., a search engine), a robot, etc. in manner that may require, for example, a large amount of situational description, refinement and possible re-initialization when the inquiry ends up going down the completely wrong path. The user may simply give up and proceed to manually execute whatever operation they were trying to request. This may result in the user abandoning the technology as not ready for everyday use.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.